Gujarat HC pulls up police for exercising ‘undue fervour’ in arresting interfaith couple, orders to launch them instantly

A DIVISION bench of the Gujarat High Court has come to the rescue of an interfaith couple from Banaskantha who had married allegedly towards the desires of the lady’s father and despatched to police custody for greater than every week. The courtroom Tuesday ordered they be instantly produced earlier than the HC bench and launched from police custody.
The division bench, led by Justice Sonia Gokani, recorded the general public prosecutor’s assurance that the couple, who now wish to stay in Surat, shall be granted police safety “initially for a period of four weeks” by the Surat metropolis police commissioner, whereafter the police commissioner shall determine whether or not the identical requires to be continued or not.
The couple had obtained married on December 30 final yr at a temple in Rajasthan’s Abu Road and subsequently travelled to Kerala for honeymoon. In January first week, the Gujarat police, nonetheless, travelled to Kerala and introduced them again to Palanpur. The two had been separated and despatched to completely different police stations — Palanpur East and Palanpur West. They had been formally arrested on January 15 after an FIR was FIR on the premise of a grievance submitted by the lady’s father at Palanpur East police station.
On January 18, a habeas corpus petition was moved by the brother of the 30-year-old man, who’s a highway transport officer in RTO Surat, stating that the latter was illegally detained, arrested and remanded to police custody, following his latest marriage to his 29-year-old childhood pal from one other group.
Hearing the petition Tuesday, the division bench quashed and put aside the four-day remand order, dated January 18 to 22. The courtroom directed the Range IG of the jurisdiction involved “to inquire into the matter, more particularly, considering the conduct of respondent Nos. 5 and 6 (police inspectors of Palanpur East and West police stations), in whose custody, the couple has been detained for all these days, and report to the DIG”.
The courtroom expressed its dissatisfaction with the overreach the place the police exercised “undue fervour”, with the officers travelling to Kerala to take a consensually married couple into custody.
The order additional notes in its course to the Range IG: “While conducting such inquiry, the Range IG concerned shall bear in mind that this is the case where undue fervour is shown on account of this being an inter-religion marriage, so also the golden words of the Supreme Court in such matters…”
The couple tied the knots at a temple in Rajasthan as per Hindu rituals and the ceremony was presided over by the temple priest. A certificates of marriage was additionally purportedly issued by the Registrar of Marriage by Abu Road authorities in Rajasthan. However, subsequently, the priest denied ever being current on the ceremony.
The girl is employed as a piece officer on contract with the taluka panchayat workplace in Palanpur. In his grievance, her father alleged that she stole Rs 82,000 from the household’s residence earlier than working away, getting married fraudulently and acquiring a pretend marriage certificates.
According to lawyer NK Majumdar, representing the petitioner, the daddy of the lady was against the wedding. The FIR additionally names the registrar as an accused, he stated.

“Gujarat police went by flight to Kerala to take the couple into their custody and then travelled back by road to Palanpur where the husband-wife were kept at two separate police stations. Both were named as accused in the FIR. The woman was pressured to not continue with the relationship but she remained adamant. A contention was raised by the petitioner that how could his brother be taken into custody even before the FIR was registered. As per the prosecution’s case, they were taken into custody in Kerala on January 12 and brought to Palanpur and arrested on January 15. But as per the petitioner, they were brought to Palanpur on January 12 and continued to be in illegal detention until January 15, when the FIR came to be registered,” Majumdar stated.
On January 4, the lady had additionally written to the police authorities that she was married and had left dwelling of her personal volition. “Hearing the habeas corpus petition, the court directed that the two be produced (before it). The bench spoke to both of them in confidentiality, first separately to each of the two parties, and then together,” Majmudar stated.